The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Furious’ Episode 7: Revenge, Rihanna, Repeat

Episode Date: August 25, 2026

Jo and Rob sound off on karaoke, last meals, and finale fears as they recap the penultimate episode of ‘Furious.’ (00:00) Intro(2:30) Finale fears(5:01) Mailbag check-in(18:59) Nora and Alice(24:58) Marshall’s mom(29:54) Frank Choi vs. Ed vs. the NYPD(33:30) Danny and Alice’s moment(43:18) Nora and Frank(45:07) Alice and Amy(46:20) Karaoke night(48:56) The motel takedown(50:19) Alice and Catherine(51:13) Danny, Ed, and the body examiner(54:13) Father-daughter bonding(1:01:58) The DNA(1:03:44) A ‘Slow Horses’ palate cleanser(1:07:06) Outro Email us! [e-mail] Follow us on IG and TikTok! Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of The Prestige TV Podcast and so much more! Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob MahoneyProducer: Devon RenaldoStudio Production: Jacob Cornett Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, welcome back to the Prestige TV podcast, Vita Robinson. I'm Rob Mojone. We're here to talk about Furious. What episode are we on? Episode seven, I believe. Okay, me too. We're nearing the end. Yeah, it's tough.

We only have one more episode to go. But in some ways, the plot feels like it's at the end game. Are we emotionally ready for the end game? I'm going to say no for me personally, but how are you feeling about where we are? Well, where are you feeling? Yeah, because like all of our characters are converging. Yes. The race to Jay Easton's house.

Some days it don't come easy. A little meat-lift lyric as the title of the episode. Our characters are converging on one location. But I guess my, so I feel like we know roughly what the finale is going to be. It's some, I don't know how long there's like a code afterwards or whatever. We are here to talk about this episode, not that episode. But I guess my question for you right now is season two. Do you see like a possibility for a season two?

How could I know that? I don't know. Who survives? You know, I think that is. It's just Jay Easton. And season two. Season two is just into Jay Easton's like dying dream state.

You know, the last flickers before he dies. No, thank you. Absolutely not. But really what we're setting up as we go into the finale is, will there be a season two as an open question? But also will there be a season two that could in any way involve a character like Catherine, which I think would be an extreme long shot? Right.

It's a great question. Um, something, you know, behind the curtain, Malib and I just finished podcasting about Lantern's episode two. And on that episode, I was talking about something that I want to talk about in this episode, which is... Who is The Manhunter on Furious? Absolutely. Who is the Manhunter on Furious? I don't know. I think it's Marshall.

Joy. Joy. He is the least human character, but also sometimes the most human character. In that room with the NYPD and Ed, he was the bar was in hell, but he was the most human character. Isn't that the most lanterns moment we've had so far as, like, The furious equivalent of like, where did Harry Potter go to school? It's like, wait, so what is the joint task force of your taint? Your taint has a joint.

The thing that I'm most concerned about for the finale is not who killed hoops or whatever. It's, are the characters I care about going to be okay? Well, no. Is anybody on this show okay? And inside of this episode, in the devastating scene, between Alice and Danny when they like finally confess their love for each other. But it's not in a joyous context. It's in a devastating context.

Again, that tension is not there is the like are Alice and Danny going to survive? That's a question that we can all ask ourselves as they head towards race towards danger. But like now I'm more like because they said I love you and earlier in the season you might thought, okay, when they can figure out how to say, I love you, they'll be okay. But that was not the case. So can they emerge through sort of an emotional hellscape to the other side of okay? I really hope so. I just am not holding onto that hope too tightly. I think in part because so much of this show is about how doing this sort of work and being in these worlds is basically incompatible with being a normal human being. You have to steal yourself, you have to grow your

You have like find a way to survive. And I don't know. Is that how you get through podcasting? Sometimes. You know, not the wings part necessarily, but maybe I should embrace it. Yeah, yeah.

Maybe that's what's been missing from the formula this whole time. But it's certainly how I steal myself for a line like, did you watch it? Which Alice has to ask Danny in this moment after they've just, or in the process of professing their love

for one another. And it's like, this is the show that this world, like the world that we reside in with Furious, a show where you have to ask that question and be devastating. of the answer and basically any possible. Like there's no good or bad answer, just like all horrible.

And I think my, I do want to circle back to the beginning and go back to that scene, but I do think my, I was on tender hooks for that scene because of something I said from the beginning of the season, which is like, don't disappoint me, Danny. You know what you mean? And I think he mostly didn't. I think he came through pretty well in this episode. Pretty well. But like, I was very nervous.

All right. So let's go back to some emails we got from listeners. Press TGV at Spotify.com. If you want to email us before the finale, we got a lot of, we had a lot of emails about Schaefer Beer. We did. Which is the beer that Marshall was sucking down right before he got shot in last week's episode. A lot of people sent us through the jingle of Schaefer beer.

It's the, what is it? It's like the beer you want when you want more than one beer, I think, is something like that. Something to that effect. Is the one beer to have when you're having more than one. In other words, the beer to buy when you want to get shit-faced. Yeah. It's cheap. Yes.

And you can get trash. We got a lot of emails from people who, like, we got an email from one listener who's like, here was my fridge in college and it was just full of Schaefer beer. You know, we've come a long way to please drink responsibly. Yeah. The fact that that used to be the built-in slogan for a beer brand and now Schaefer is the official beer of abusive cops or maybe soon to be ex-cops everywhere. I just have a question for David, who's the one who sent us the aforementioned photo from

1999. David. Tremendous. What's your photo cataloging system like that you could pull up this photo of your college fridge from 1990? Is it framed on your mantle? Reveal the scrapbook. Yeah, exactly.

I'm just astounded. This is what our listener of Paul said. Shaper beer review from East Coast College Boys Circair 2007. Me and my housemates were on a year-long quest to sample as many different brands and flavors of beer as possible. When we finished a pack, we would cut out the side of the box and tape it to the wall,

resulting in a kind of douche bro wallpaper. Sometimes people would see the wall and ask, what's the worst one? More often than not, the answer was Schaefer. My friend described it as a fresh fart in my mouth. So what Marshall was sucking down in the car while listening to 311. To Rob's point, yes, we were listening

to Red Hot Chili Peppers and Incubis when we drank it, and our beer pong table had the cover art of 40 ounces of freedom painted at the center court. By the way, I'm 10 years sober now and not a police officer. So thanks, Paul. I mean, an illuminating story, I have a lot of thoughts on it, but my visceral thought is we got to stop using sucking down for beverages. Or if you're...

What about if you're sucking on chili dogs outside the tasty free? We got to also not do that. I think the only time you can't use it is when you're sucking on chili dogs outside the tasty free. We will allow that one exception, but no other sucking down any foods or beverages. Fair enough. I'm going to say this into a microphone, even though I already admitted to you off. My carpet bagging is the term you were looking for in terms of setting up. residents in a different district so you could get elected there.

This is the nicest thing you've ever said to me. You're welcome. Thank you, Joe. I think one of our listeners suggested that you should coin the phrase, Jerry candoring, like for canning, but gerrymandering? I saw the pun. But you hate puns. I have a mixed relationship.

Let's go back to Chircouture. You hated that. You hate pun. That just threw me for a loop. Yeah. I didn't know where you were going with Chiricueteray. In terms of the state fair, does one taste the can? or jarred goods.

Yeah. The answer was, it depends entirely on the state fair is what we found out. In the New York State Fair, for example, it's 50% of your score is taste,

but some places they don't taste it off. I think as it should be. Yeah. Well, I thought you were saying you don't taste it. I'm saying, as I understood it, there were some competitions

where you do not, where it's purely an aesthetic and seal-based exercise. It should be taste-based, though. We got a lot of state fair emails. Thank you guys all. you're all very strange and we love you so much. Thank you for following us down these various rabbit holes.

More on topic, less whimsical emails. Oh, we get those? Yeah. Marina wrote in to say, this may be obvious, but when you guys were discussing Alden and Catherine's relationship and the sincerity of her reaction to him asking her to be his girlfriend, etc., I think it's notable that Catherine seems to feel safe around Alden, especially because he physically cannot touch her.

It's like she's the only one who has that power in the relationship, and that is why she's able to relax and be vulnerable with him. I thought that was a great observation. I thought that was incredible. I mean, just the ways in which someone like Catherine would be eager for any part of her life that she can exercise on her own terms after everything she's been through, makes total sense that that would be a kind of magnetism for her. Absolutely.

Our listener Alison wrote in this incredible email. Allison literally wrote a book called Female Detectives on Post-network Television, colon, mother maiden cough. Allison said that she did not write in to sell her book, but I'm going to say, would buy that book. But I thought her insights were really interesting. She wrote,

I'd categorize many female detectives from the last eight to nine years as emblematic of the post Me Too era. The crimes they investigate are often gendered, the narratives often parallel the lines of the detectives with the lives slash trauma of the victims, and there's often some criticism of male detectives within their precincts, think Catherine Kay would have Happy Valley at Great Show, Mayor of Easttown, etc.

However, there's often some desire to hold out hope for the ability of the system to solve a crime via the empathy and insight of the female detective. Unbelievable, exemplifies this tendency, unbelievable great show. In other words, there's still hope for a systemic reform. Furious strikes me as a post-Ebstein television show, which builds on the investigations of trauma and gendered violence within the earlier wave of female detective television. However, it seems to, at least so far, be even more deeply cynical about the institutions of policing, whether they are FBI or NYPD.

Female detectives are still more empathetic, but not necessarily more moral than anyone else. And the institutions are even more deeply corrupt, no longer just one bad apple. And I thought this is most interesting. The detective's parallel is no longer to the victim, but to the killer. Yeah. I thought that was extraordinary insight. Absolutely. Anything you want to say about Allison's email or insights there?

I mean, I think a lot of it is the navigation of those systems for me. And that's something that, I mean, we got those conversations pretty overtly last week between Alice and Catherine. But you can also see it just in the way that Alice and Nora go about doing their job. And how much of their job is like, we need to engineer a thing that is sort of beyond reproach so it can have any hope of navigating this system in one piece. It's like the ways in which everyone is kind of collectively giving up on even trying to link Isabel's murder, for example, to Jay Easton or Emma Easton in any way.

It's like, you need this tape or you're cooked. Like, that is the only hope of proving anything in a case like this, it seems like. I think that, especially in the side of this episode, thinking about Alice as a pupil of both Nora and Catherine. Like, what is she learning from Nora in terms of like we use people, all that sort of stuff like that? But what is Catherine teaching her as well? I think is really fascinating.

And like are they sort of warring for her, you know, like not as binary as a devil and angel, but sort of like are they, you know, is there a pull towards, you know, vigilante justice, Catherine style or a pull towards what Nora does inside of the system, you know? And do those people like what they see? I thought it was really interesting that Nora is telling Alice constantly about using people. And like, this is what the job is. This is what we do. And then as soon as she starts, Alice starts squeezing is about.

a little bit. It's Nora that's saying, whoa, like, there is a line here still versus Catherine. I mean, she's revved up and ready to go. Yeah. There's a lot of, a lot of mystery to inferral in terms of how someone like Catherine, who is such like a stone cold killer, but a slow, methodical, get in your trust in good graces and then inject you with fentanyl kind of killer is going to assault a compound. But that's for next week.

That's something she's thinking about, and she's driving. A very Catherine Light episode. Yes. But a very good episode nonetheless. I think thinking about, I need to think about it a bit more and I'd be curious if we get emails from listeners about this. Or it might just be about whatever idiotic beer we talk about next or something like that. But like I love all those emails. The Me Too movement versus like the post Epstein reckoning and what that means about systems versus holding individuals responsible.

The Me Too movement era, whatever you want to call it. And the way in which it was like this hope that we could all come together and call out individual bad actors and there would be reprisal. It would be like Harvey Weinstein goes to jail, et cetera, et cetera. But then seeing how when certain people were held accountable for their actions, how much did that accountability stick to them at the end of the day? And that was like one of the harder lessons of the Me Too movement is like even when we all have decided to agree and speak truth to power and all this sort of stuff. like that. And put yourself in vulnerable, like, you know, positions of attesting to those things. Absolutely.

It's some, sometimes, and I would say often does not stick. And then in the Epstein, in the sense of sort of the post-Ebstein idea is like, yes, Jeffrey Epstein went to jail, but the Epstein, in terms of the Epstein files and like holding everyone accountable and how systemic this was and how high up it goes and like how you can't have. have faith that there will be justice for anyone. Like I really understand those sort of like two, you know, sex crime associated, you know, reckonings would feel very different and how the stories would reflect them differently back at us. You know what I mean? Completely.

I think it's one of the quaintest parts of watching older detective stories in particular. Clearly, everyone's relationship to like cop-oriented media has shipped it a lot over the last couple years and maybe the last decade or so in particular. That's one thing. But then there's the like, oh, they got the guy, but what would, in the rewatchable style, what would happen the next day? Right. These charges would never stick. This crazy murder or sex pest or whoever is like going scot-free because the systems are not actually built very well to be airtight. They're built to be navigated. And by Jay Easton in particular and people around him, navigated so smoothly. on this sort of like vigilante justice front I think we got a really interesting email from Gary who said what really separates Catherine from someone like Eric Draven aka the crow I mean there's one critical distinction what would that be he's dead oh okay hard to hold a dead man to too much justice in my experience sure she didn't come back from the dead sure she didn't come back from the dead but Catherine does have these assumed personalities and she's set on vengeance for everyone who was at the party where her best friend died in the crow he's a hero for doing this granted in the crow every one of these.

these people is still actively robbing, shooting, sticking, killing, etc. But apparently, at least Jay Easton is doing some harm to people. He certainly is an innocent. So what's the real difference? The narrative framing of vengeance as heroic versus framing as a crime is worth examining. If only Ernie Hudson worked for the FBI or the NYPD, maybe Catherine can get away with it. So that email helps if you've seen the crow. I was going to say a difference in terms of the way that we respond to these reactions is gendered, you know.

Of course. At the end of the day. Speaking of gendered fury, should we talk about the furies? I think we must and certainly you must. How disappointed me or are you that the text of the show got there before I got there? I'm slightly surprised, but also it's one of those things that like etymologically speaking, don't we all know what we're doing here? I didn't know that one of the characters was going to say,

I have to become a fury to survive this job. Right. the Furies from Greek and Roman mythology Born from the blood of Uranus as he was castrated by Kronus Tough to hear it Our listener Kim wrote in to say the furies are sometimes described as winged She said winged but I said winged Sometimes it's having snakes in their hair but always as hateful, relentless in their work

Associated with night and death Speaking of consequences for people Neil Gaiman described the furies in his graphic novel, The Sandman, is sometimes taking the form of maiden mother crone, which would fit pretty well with the ages of our three main female characters. I'm pro-crone personally, so I'm not considering that an insult to Nora. But I do think that like, yeah, in terms of like age brackets, we've got three, at least micro generations working between these women. Honestly, I aspire to a bit of a crone lifestyle myself. I know, Chrome zone, baby. I think that's really the, especially as we enter into fall and winter, I'm in my crone space. It's crying. It's gone. So anyway, the Furies, the show made it text, but we had gotten several emails about it. I just hadn't gotten there yet.

So, yeah. It's a clever bit. And look, if the whole point of Nora having this classical education is to get us here, I liked it. Yeah, me too. No, I was for it. Plus, the way she was describing the wings. Yes.

Very visceral. Very good. Last but not least, our listener, Riva, wrote in to say, I'm not sure if who killed Isabel is the point, most likely Jayston, perhaps. Coke Davis, Emma Easton herself. But rather the fact that Catherine can't remember Memento style. So just sort of, yeah, is the answer important or is Catherine being able to remember what, like, access that part of her brain that's missing before whatever happens to her, you know, before the finale's over. Is that more the point, you know?

I don't think the show is, to its credit, ever really treated this season as an Isabel murder mystery. This isn't like what happened to Lily Kane. This is what is this question that leads us to... Who killed Rosie Larsson? That points to Jay Easton or another person. Like, how does it fit into the puzzle of all this other stuff? At least that's in my experience watching it. I think that's how we've been watching it.

I think there's certainly probably some people. You think so? We're not corkboarding this particular show, but I think, oh, I told you this off mic, but I'm saying to the microphone as well, when I was in Baltimore for this Orioles event, I cannot tell you how many House of Our listeners were like, I listened to all the Cape Fear episodes. And I heard some Javier Bardem impressions, and it was just, like, quite the experience.

Thank you all for coming with us on that, absolutely insane journey. You complete sickos, and I say that with the greatest possible affection. All right. Should I go through the episode? Please. All right, we start with Nora and Alice in the ambulance. But Nora and Alice in the hospital. I think it's interesting that it's Nora here.

It will eventually be Danny, but it's Nora here as Alice is waking up. She's, before she gets to her Fury speech later, right now she's on her Icarus beat, right? My wings have melted. It's about as much accountability as she's willing to take in this moment. But how, I'm like, what do you make of, I mean, I thought it was interesting that calculus that she's doing here. She's like, you saved Marshall that piece of shit. Yeah. And now our ability to hold Jason accountable or all the other thing like goes out the window.

And the wind. You had to be the hero. Why did you make that move? But the way in which they're being cruel to each other here, right? You're soft. You're a drunk. And then the way in which that is just not even any kind of tension the next time they see each other. Not a single bit.

And what level of comfort they've achieved with each other inside of this. Because they are throwing accusations and insults at each other. And they're deeply personal ones. but it's like I'm not looking to wound. I'm looking to tell you a truth about yourself and I'm looking to, well, I'm looking to wound, but I'm also just like telling you a truth about yourself and I'm going to tell you a truth right back to you, you know? I don't even know that it's meant to wound so much as, at least from Nora's perspective,

my read on this scene was like so much placed or misplaced frustration in the way things went. It's like all of this blew up and I just need to point a finger at somebody. even if like, I think she is fully aware that her grandstanding is a big part of the reason all of this imploded. But right now, she needs to point a finger at somebody. And she needs to take out the claws on somebody. And it happens to be Alice. And Alice is like, I see what you need right here. And I'm not going to like just take it like literally lying down because I'm in a hospital bed.

But like I'm going to fling something back at you. I mean, it goes back to like earlier in the season when I was like, oh, Nora really disappointed me when she made Alice feel bad. about something she had discovered. And in this case, I wasn't so much disappointed as I was just like, this is just classic Nora. And I feel like Alice better knows how to navigate it now where she's like, this is something Nora's going to do. And I don't need to take it as seriously as I took it before because this is something she needs.

And I could just be like, okay, Nora's going to blame me. But we all know it's not my fault at the end of the day. I think the difference between those things is we expect Nora to be prickly. We expect her to lash out. like this is a flawed human person who has been stuck and stifled by this system for so long. But we didn't expect is for her to like roll over when she got pressed by Ed George. Like basically the first time we saw it this season. Right.

And that's why that felt so frustrating until she doubled back until she got involved with the case again. It's like it's a totally different thing to me. And it speaks to what you just brought up in terms of the lack of follow up on anything that happens in the hospital when they do reunite at the bar for karaoke time. It's like these are two people who this is, I would say, what they have most in common is they don't need the heart to heart. Like, they just need to get back in the car and work the case and be out all night, freezing in the Bronx, outside this motel. Might have to sing. Might have to sing.

Although we didn't get any of that follow up. Maybe, you know, the coffee was stronger than she expected. But this is who these people are. And I love that we didn't overly sentimentalize any of that. We do, I mean, we get into some fury talk. We get into some very direct, like, thematic connection and a very TV writer. way. But these two people who are, I would say, like, more focused in working the case than they are focused in working on themselves, just get to do that thing. Wow. Pouring yourself into work rather

than looking inward. What's that about? I don't know. I've never heard of it. Interesting. Alice lies to Nora, right? She says, Catherine asked if she should shoot Marshall and she said, I said no. Why lie? Yeah. Nora makes this comment about dying, pressing the wrong button. while making instant noodles and the government-issued microwave. Rob, what's the saddest meal to die by? Oh, that's a great question.

SpaghettiOs. Oh. Not the Beanie weanis, which you came for earlier this year? I don't know. Beanie weanies at least reeks of a survival preparism that I can understand.

You know, you're at the end of days. Society has collapsed. It's paradise. You're clinging to your last beanie and weenie. Right. But if you're putting the spaghettis in, I mean, here's the thing. If the fully stocked grocery stores

available to us in a Graceland scenario. And I need to figure out what I'm going to survive on. Spaghettios are among the last thing that's going to be taken off that shelf. Yeah, no nutritional value, horrible texture. I would rather dance with Chef Boyardee, Ravioli or something, than that. Because at least there's like a meat like substance in the Ravioli. In theory, a nutritional value. Yeah.

Interesting. Okay. What's your take? Oh, I thought I could just like. You usually just hand these things off to me like a bomb and wait for them to explode in my face. but I'm going to ask you to call out something specific. I'm not like Easy Mac.

What? That's the saddest meal to die by? Easy Mac? I mean, first of all, Easy Mac, delicious. No, but like Easy Mac. Our producer Kai Grady, you might not agree. Publicly had to eat some Easy Mac. Didn't go well for him.

Mac and cheese, like craft mac and cheese takes five minutes. Yes. Easy Mac takes like three minutes. So you're saying, what are you doing? On principle, the idea that you have tried to shortchange the system. Yeah. of craft mac and cheese. It's a five-minute process into a three-minute process.

Look, I agree with that. But if you did die eating any variation of craft mac and cheese, I think it would be a perfectly fine way to go. Or maybe like a lean cuisine stir fry. Healthy choice star fry. You know what I mean? Anything when you're making... The limpest red bell pepper in the worst terriarchy sauce you've ever had.

Yeah, you sold me. Yeah, there we are. Okay. Danny and Marshall's mom. I really liked this episode. I like these characters. Marshall's mom is the most cartoonish character. inside of this show. Even in the way she talks.

Like, she's the most cartoonishly old, old lady. Because that woman did famously voice Patty mayonnaise on the animated show Doug. So, like, she does always sound like a cartoon to me, but, like, did you know she lost a baby? God knows how? Like, a complete non-secretor.

Like, what is that? A really strange interaction. Other than setting up, like, some exposition talk later. No, that's all it was. It was just dropping exposition. This is, like, similar to when Danny was like, hey Marshall, do you know what Alice does? She pays people to beat her up.

People are just like sharing information out of nowhere in a really weird way. There are some shortcuts. But that one in particular, because it is deployed, not just as conversation fodder, do you know what Alice does? But like, this is the worst thing I can say about.

This is the worst thing I can imagine somebody doing is being a teenager alone and in pain. It's like, what? I think also it, in terms of like setting the story up or setting the characters up, having Danny just be so stalwartly defensive of Alice in this exchange where he's like, what the fuck was your son doing outside a woman's shelter, drunk off his ass? Like, let's talk about that.

So stalwartly, like on Alice's side sets us up for where he is later in the episode when he can't be everything she wants it to be in that scene. But we've seen him sort of be a hero for her elsewhere in the episode, you know. I mean, that's really the one time maybe all season. They haven't been able to really get on the same page on something this critical. It's like what to do with this flash drive. And for understandable reasons, he can't bring himself to like loop Alice into all this mess, to put that in front of other people to make it part of the case for everything it would entail.

I still don't understand. I mean, I guess if Eduardo from IT or wherever, whatever department, forensic tech, I don't want to like, demean Eduardo. I don't know what he does. Yeah. He can tell. You don't know what he does? He does a good job around here, Joe.

I can tell. He can tell that. He does a great job because he can tell the files were copied off of the laptop. So I guess probably Eduardo or one of his counterparts could tell if a singular file was removed from that flash drive. They could. Why don't we, and I'm not in tech. I don't know if you notice. Can we transfer all the files?

from that flash drive onto another flash drive except for the Alice file. I would think this is a pretty... Rather than delete one off the flash drive, why don't we transfer them all to a brand new one and we just skip one and then we have a whole flash drive

full of incriminating evidence and not the one thing that we don't want other people to see. I think this is a great solution. And frankly... Danny Kelly, call me. Like, Danny Kelly, you got to make copies of this flash drive, first of all. We're not trying to, like,

get too many copies of the very delicate child pornography that's on it. But like... When Ed George gets in the back of your car. You've got to have more than one. You just have to have more than one. Yeah.

And I think one of my favorite things about Danny and Alice going back to her place and him kind of settling her back in. I mean, for one, great banter, which makes all of the stuff later that much painful. Like, them coming together is really powerful. But the way in which he sets the flash drive on her nightstand, as if he's been like holding it in his hand for six straight hours and, like, finally can put it down somewhere safe. Yeah. There's just so many small parts of their exchange that I just found like really knocked me over the head in a good way.

Before we get into that Danny and Alice stuff, which I want to do all at once, is there anything else you want to say about my boy, Troy, Frank Choi? Well, even before that, I don't want to scoot past the hospital stuff too fast with Nora and Alice because to me it's like so much of that conversation with them. And this ties back into the Eric Draven step. Our spaghetti's conversation didn't fulfill the problem. It was fulfilling, but maybe not fulfilling in exactly the way that. I need because Nora has told me and characters have said repeatedly throughout the season like this is about means and ends and I find it really interesting the parallel of you know like is it righteous to murder the people who traffic and abuse young girls and at the same time is it justified

for cops to exploit often those same young girls for the sake of getting to the people who trafficked and like abuse them in the first place like who gets to do what? to whom and when and sleep at night is clearly something everyone in this show is trying to wrestle with. For my money, Catherine seems to be sleeping real well. She seems resolved in what she is trying to do. Yeah.

Everyone else is in shades of gray and trying to navigate it. Yeah, she's got a real timuliffe on it. It was justified, sort of like, demeanor too. He was right, she's right. Frank Choi versus Ed and the NYPD. What's the official statement of the Choi boys after this episode? A hero and a scholar. Yeah.

I would say the bars in hell when Frank Choi is the, the moral center of the room. And that's where we find ourselves. Nora's not there. Alice isn't there. Danny Kelly isn't there. It's just Frank Choi, Ed,

Marty Fontanesca, and the rest. And they're all talking around sort of like death by NYPD is sort of the desire for Catherine. And Choi's like, wait a minute.

Choi, who was our antagonist for a few episodes earlier this season. And I thought that was, I always think it's interesting when like, um, not just like,

people start as antagonists and change their mind, but it's more that like the moral center in the room shifts. So all of a sudden, Choi, who was like on the far right of this conversation, let's say, is like the lefty in the room who's like, there are levels to this stuff.

Maybe we don't kill her. I don't know. Something to think about. Well, especially when like Ed George, part of why he's such a brilliant character, is that he represents like a very specific kind of middle management evil. That is like,

she had a perfect face for that perfect face perfect comportment like in this scene he is the coolest head in the room right like everyone is shouting he's the guy being like well now let's hold on let's like let's back up let's zoom out let's let's talk this through and the way in which that sort of approach is not a virtue like sometimes it is just meant to protect people and power to sweet things under the rug to stall out processes with like good natured uh patience and introspection. Yeah. I just find to be like such a, such a great addition to this show and such a critical reason why, as we alluded to earlier, like the systems are just impossible to see their way through because there's an Ed George in the middle of almost everything. So this is Danny McCarthy's

the actor and I don't think I'm like really familiar with his work, but I think the way in which you can see because Ed George is a character who should be, there's a version of this performance where he's like panicking. Yes. Since we met him panicking. Instead, what we get often, with his character, and we mentioned it before, is sort of like wheels turning. So you're watching him try to, like, problem solve. What's next? What's next? What's next?

And if what's next involves you, like, in the stall of the men's room, doing it enhance and hands and enhance on a screen to like zero in on Danny Kelly and then research Danny Kelly's son and, like, have, you know, you hope ammunition. But even when Danny, like, puts his face into the sidewalk and puts his shoe on his face in a way that I really enjoyed.

Just very satisfied. I really enjoyed. He stands up. He looks like rumbled and dumpy for a second, but then he just sort of like straightens his very expensive coat. And he's just sort of like, what's the next plan? Gotta call Hope Davis, I guess, because she's fucking evil. Great.

I think he was calling the NYPD first. Did he? He was trying to get through to Marty. He's like, what's happening? Assumingly so he could throw Danny under the bus and start like, you know, doing his usual routine. But instead learns. He's like, what's going on?

I mean, really what he learns is that his utility in the story is almost at an end. Like, Well, there's only one more episode. I mean, frankly, all of our utility is almost an end. Life is short. We are but blinking grains of sand drifting in the grand scheme of the universe. Welcome back from Hawaii, Ralph. Thank you.

But here, it's like the more that Catherine and Jay Easton in particular are on a physical collision course. Yes. Ed George is not built for that. He's not going to throw his body in front of anything. He's here to obfuscate. And there is less and less to obfuscate as we get closer to the end of the season. I think what you say that word. Okay.

Danny and Alice, really devastating. When she's like, I want to go to the shore with you, pull my heart out of my chest. She says she loves him so much. Like, you know, I love your hands. I love everything. And then she says that there's a part of her, there's a part of me that's not good. And I don't know how to make it better. Fuck me right up, Joe.

And later, Nora will identify in Alice. she's like, you're different when you talk about Catherine. Yeah. So there's just like, in terms of like talking about the darkness that exists inside of Alice and where she's being pulled in one direction or another, she's like, there's something in me that recognizes something in Catherine, especially in having had that, like, close proximity to her in the last episode and just sort of like there's some, there's some part of me that's not good. And whether that's what she was told by her parents, whether that's the,

reaction to, you know, whoever it was that put her on tape and all the things that happened to her during that traumatic experience of her life, or whether she's just sort of like, there is an anger in me, there is a fury in me, there is a vengeance in me. See, I would almost push back against the idea that that part of her, weird as this sounds, because we're talking about a literal serial killer, is not good. Welcome to my side. Well, I say this, especially in conjunction with Nora, who like the real. We've been waiting for you. As long as I'm still welcome around here. Oh, of course. Nora has so much more distance from Catherine and everything.

Because she has just seen and done and investigated too much. She is trying to get through the day and drinking to keep her wings to make that even remotely possible. Right. So she's not going to connect with Catherine because I don't know that Nora. We don't know her full story. We don't know a full story, but she doesn't seem capable of connecting with a lot of people anymore. Like she is at a very difficult part in her life. Alice is too.

But she's so new to this and it's so raw and this is so fresh and the connection is so visceral in terms of what Catherine has been through and what Alice herself has been through, whether who, who's to speak of what parts that she's conscious of or not. It feels human that she would see something in Catherine that she understands. If you, if you were Alice and you didn't see something in Catherine, you understand, I would worry about you. I would worry about your ability to understand your fellow human being and try to like broach any gap between you versus, I, as I, I would worry about your ability to understand your fellow human being. and try to like broach any gap between you versus I think Nora in ways that sometimes makes her very good at her job is not interested in that gap. She sees the face on the cork board and she's like, we need to bring this person in. What are the pieces we need to do to make that happen? And Alice is not doing that just.

And I'm like, kill more people, Catherine. Here's what I think is. I think that's an interesting point. I think what's interesting is like who Alice is interested in making a connection with. Yes. Like Amy and her fucking pairs get shut all the way down. And we understand why. Yeah.

We do. Don't bring. this Harry and David shit to me. Like, I don't want it. Don't throw Harry and David over the table like that. They're doing fine work. The pears?

Granted, there are better varietals of fruit if you're going to bring fruit. But also, like, I would bring, I would bring, like, a chocolate and nut combination before I would bring a pear. I mean, it's true. Yeah. This is kind of the folly of this particular, like,

feel better, get well soon. Food basket situation. But also, mom used to make me eat pears and I was sick. Well, she's speaking from what she knows. Yeah. It's so interesting. And in some cases, kind of funny.

Like, the whole take the pairs thing is like, I mean, meant for a laugh. Like, there are bits of this that are supposed to be funny. But also take the fucking pairs, Amy. Completely. Yeah.

But Amy is the most normal person on this show. The fine normal. But sure. Like, well, the most insulated from, from damage. That's what I mean.

She shows up doing the normal human thing, which is like she's trying to connect with her somewhat disconnected sister who's like she's trying to be there. She's even trying to ask like the hard question. I understand that. I just like would slightly push back on the word normal there and just say like conventional,

like the most conventional person. Do you know what I mean? Sure. I mean the most day-to-day has not been exposed to a lot of predators or child pornography or been trafficked. It must be nice. In terms of Danny and how he sort of tells Alice about this and what he tells her, like, he does literally say it's not your fault what happened to you. Yeah.

But he also says someone. did this to you, hit a camera, how old were you? Did you know it was out there? There are light accusations laced inside of those questions. Do you know what I mean? That's not, I mean, I think he generally wants to know, and I think Danny Kelly is like one of the best people on this show and I like genuinely love him. Yeah. But I think even though he says, it's not your fault, I think if I were Alice, there's no way I would be able to hear those questions and not hear did you know about this and you hit it for me? Did you know about the camera were you performing for it?

Like, you know, how old were you? You were tainted goods? Like all these other things. The way in which Emmy Rossum is sort of like grasping at her neck as she's sort of trying to process this conversation with him. So again, I think Danny did like the best job he could do. I'm not like disappointed in him. But I do think unintentionally there are accusations inside of this conversation that

he tries to have with her. I think both things are absolutely true. Like you would, if you were in Alice's position, hear accusation, hear something that even just feels pointed or a little more Barbie than you're, like, and I said, I mean, like, having barbs than you're used to associating with Danny. And from Danny's perspective, you can also see him trying to do the thing he didn't do last time with Marshall, which is like, ask the questions, like figure out what actually happened, figure out what she actually went through.

And, like, to me it read, I mean, clearly there is the part of that that is just wounding for Alice. And specifically, I mean, Amy Rossum has been on fire this season. Like this performance is tremendous. And what she's giving in that like grasping at her neck, wordless face acting in a lot of this scene is like, this is a person who's just like getting hit by a car, whether she remembers this thing or not. Yeah.

And the fact that it's like playing on loop in her head and it's just like the trauma and the impact over and over. And specifically the idea that she and this guy who she, like, they've been in each other's, orbit and are in love and have been like figuring out how to say this to each other and finally do. And the reason it can't happen right now is because he has seen this thing that he can't unsee. Yeah. And so it's the car crash just hitting her all over again. And it's it's awful to see, but it is an incredible performance. What more will this take from her? Right. Right.

I have been worried since the beginning because Chris Ryan planted the seed in my head that like Danny Kelly would die before the season was out. It might still happen. But there are tragedies perhaps worse than one of the other dying, which is just sort of like circumstantially. I don't know. Our listener Rosie wrote in, well, first of all, one of our listeners wrote in to let us know, I miss this, but when Alice signed into the shelter in last week's episode, she signed her name Alice Kelly.

That was dating. Okay. I listened to Rosie wrote in to say, early in the season, we saw Alice's noted interest in the locked room where Nora goes to view the child sexual abuse material. We are intentionally shown Alice looking longingly at the locked door again a few episodes later. Also, I believe in the first conversation Nora and Alice ever have, it comes up that Alice initially applied to be part of Nora's team in the sex crimes department. Feels to me, like from the beginning of her career, Alice has been motivated to find and erase whatever videos of her might exist. I don't know if I agree with this, but this is Rosie's point of view.

Seems unlikely that the video shows Alice, Rosie wrote this after last week's episode. Seems unlikely that the video shows Alice with Jay Easton since the show is not given us any hints that she's after him specifically beyond following the trail that Catherine's laying out. Earlier, she told Marshall that her teen pregnancy was a result of running away and falling in love, but could it be from being trafficked?

So like, we still don't know every single gross of detail of what happened to Alice here. And I did see some pushback from viewers after the revelation that Alice was on that drive. that it all felt too coincidental. But I think the fact that it's not Jay on the video that it's just sort of like Jay's museum, his smorgas board of depravity that he like must have.

You know, he's like a collector of this shit. So like she winds up on there because this thing happened to her. But it's not directly connected to like one of his parties necessarily or something like that. So does that slightly less direct connection make it all feel more plausible at the end of the day? I think so. I haven't been interpreting that lingering shot of the locked down child pornography viewing room at the FBI. As like, as you said, like her trying to get in there to erase something necessarily. But even just in knowing how young she was and what she went through, the idea of what lies beyond that door and what would drive someone who's lived to that,

whether she knows that she was on tape or not to want to protect other people from similar things. Like that's the character beat that I think is there and interesting. Yeah. The coincidence is driving that and driving the motivation of her, but I agree,

it would have been weird if it was Jay Easton. Like she'd been in a room with Jay Easton and we didn't see any flicker of anything from her other than like, I want to get this guy in general. But yeah, so that would have been odd if that were the case. Anything else you want to say

about the Danny and Allison direction here? I'm actually good. Where else do we want to go? Nora and Frank. Nora's back at work. I mean, talking about this is our most comedic scene. Nora's back at work,

microwaving her coffee. He's like, you microwave me your coffee is so sad. It is a little sad. I don't know. I have an nostalgia far because my grandma used to do it. So it just sort of like,

just drink the room temperature coffee. It's going to be fine. I do also like, kind of like cold coffee. That's fine. Yeah. Anyway, he's talking to her about Ed

and she's taking her like her mental health quiz, right? the activities that are not acts of self-care, taking a hot bath, catching up on emails, talking to a therapist. The way that he like bends down seriously to look at the screen

and answer the question. He's so credulous in a really delightful way. Yeah. Excuse me, though. Sometimes answered, catching up on emails. I'm so glad you brought this out. Can be an act of self-care. Joe, thank you for understanding and understanding me.

I mean, we're fundamentally not well people, I think, Rob. But at the end of the day, I was like, excuse you. I mean, my inbox is a mess. You've seen. I have. Yeah. This is why I wasn't sure where you would come down

on this critical issue because us inbox zero people managing the incoming emails is an act of self-care. Oh, it's crucial. It's simply how we get through the day. Once you're at zero, you have to stay. You have to stay.

Yours is all over the place. But clearly there's some management required that can bring you peace of mind at night. It's mostly like weeding out the, the, like, emails I don't have to read to just leave room for the emails I'm neglecting to respond to. Does that make sense?

So which of the emails from our listeners are you not reading? Oh, no, I read all of our listener emails. Those are much more important. All right, yeah. And then Troy says, fine, don't tell me. It's got to fuck my whole career. Great stuff.

We already mentioned Ed in the men's room. Grace are from Ed. Anything else you want to say about the Allison Amy scene? I mean, again, I find what she's doing to be pretty understandable as far as like trying to show up for someone you don't fully understand. Oh, yeah. But it also...

I just have an issue with the word normal in general. Honestly, very fair. But yeah, I don't think Amy's like a bad actor inside of this scene. And I do think that idea of like you grew up in a different house, not just like a physically different, but like that resentment that one can have if you had a terrible, like, experience with your parent, but you watch your parent, then parent someone else better

or become a great-grandparent and you're like, where this shit was this energy for me, that is really hard to do with. Oh, brutal. I completely get why Alice would want no part of any of this, especially that idea of this was your mom's parallel life

and the family that you could have had, but she disowned you because you were pregnant when you were 14 for what we now know to be just like horrific circumstances. It's awful all the way around. I just feel a little bit for Amy who has stepped into a story. She does not understand.

She doesn't get it. Look, showing up after Danny left, not great timing. Showing up after all this, not great timing. She also has not seen the season of Furious. So she doesn't know everything we know, which is... You should sit down and watch it. It's a great show.

It's really good. Amy, you'll love it. Okay, Nora and Alice worked the case. We've already mentioned the karaoke. The Hawaiian shirt. I'm going to be retired soon. Yeah. The no bra, my baby's swinging back and forth.

The way she, like, taunts the man who's looking at her. All this sort of good. How did you feel about the meat loaf choice here? Good. Great karaoke song. Disagree. Oh, too long. It's got a long instrumental section.

Yeah, but she's doing a full-on dance break. I think you have to perform it. What do you do during a long instrumental break in a karaoke song? Well, I simply don't. Yeah. I'm looking at things in that pretty sweet, tops four-minute runtime on that song. A short song that everyone knows so they can sing along with you,

that's my ideal karaoke experience. And this is a banger song. Yes. But any meatloaf song is, first of all, like seven minutes long. They are too long. Like Paradise by the Dash, like Dashmore, Like, that's an incredible song. There's an instrumental, like, I wouldn't, I simply wouldn't with an instrumental break.

But maybe if I was shit faces more, right? See, I think it's, it's a different, these situations, big room karaoke at a bar in front of everybody is a very delicate dance in terms of song. Do I want everyone doing this? No. But if you can hold the room. Well, yes. At one of our Spotify pilgrimages to Stockholm, I watched a Swedish man. Yeah.

Hold us all on the tip of his finger. Oh, yeah. As he falsettoed, I will always love you. And when she hit the drop jo, it may be the happiest moment of my entire life. So it can be done. It's just you got to be able to hold the room. No, of course it's giving me done. I've seen people do it.

I'm just saying for myself, I would never pick something with an instrumental break. Nor would I. Some people are karaoke wizards and they're just sort of like they can make anything into an absolute dynamite show. Nora is killing it here, honestly. So they go to stake out the motel. Norris is good you're using me, right? Just before she's going to be like, oh, not like that with a child.

But Heart Island, that's where they all go. That's the episode title of the finale. Oh, no. It's heart island. So that's all I know. I feel great about that. Just very uplifting stuff. But that's where all the Jane Does go, the unnamed graves.

She's usually like, we stack them three graves deep or whatever, Heart Island. Jesus Christ. It's going to be a very, going to be a very important. very uplifting finale, I can tell. Did I say scared? We don't get scared. We can kill men with our bare hands. It's true. Hot. Great. Anything you want to say about the sort of siege of the motel here?

We get the, we get the Furies thing. Big muscular wings right out of my back. I really think you should contemplate that when you're podcasting, just thinking about like. Big muscular wings. Big muscular wings. It's a very manly thing, you know? I guess. But what if I want more of a feathered look? Okay. A feathered or maybe like something gossamerie and glittery?

You can have whatever you want. I mean, why not all of the above? Yeah. You know? I think it could be muscular and glittery. Sure. I love that for you. Nora tackles this man who literally goes by Big Band.

She just like takes him down. That's her job. This is what this is her shit. Great. And then Alice goes hard on Elena. like, Isabel was your mom. Yep. And then goes hard on Catherine, but hard on Catherine in a way where she's like,

you get what I'm doing, right? You know? Like, but first she's like, there's no deal for you. There was, she lies to her. She's like, there's nothing on the laptop. I mean, technically true. But like, she's like, but Danny Kelly has sweatily been grasping a thumb drive that could be very helpful.

What do you think a flash drive has better chance of surviving? Cape Fear River or the palm sweat of one, Danny Kelly? She does seem like a very sweaty man. But a dirty, that's a pretty dirty river in Cape Fear. I just, I think between the water and the grime, that flash drive isn't making it out alive. Yet another case of like, how is any of this stuff actionable? I don't know. Alice and Catherine, anything else you want to say about this?

Search incident to arrest, baby. It's just any time they're in the same room, it's electric stuff. And this is the tension of these stories. I was like, how much can you do this? How much can you find plot reason for them to be in the same place? What if season two is just them like Thelma and Louising around the country, killing bad men. You know, I would be down for that. I'm down for Alice on the lamp.

Just the little smile that Catherine gives her when she finally realizes, oh, this woman who seems insane, and maybe it's kind of insane in front of me, is letting me off for this very specific purpose. Like, when she starts putting the pieces together, the show just clicks into such a high gear. Yeah. And I want those two actors. I want those two characters in the same spaces. It's just we are, I think, not long for that. particular world.

I don't know what's going to happen here. All right, Danny and the medical examiner and Ed. He's a real one. Kevin, Kevin at the morgue. Kevin the medical examiner? Kevin, the Emmy. Emmy, Kevin. He's showing up.

Yeah. He's doing it. I also want to shout out Danny's Marty Fontenesca impression, which I thought was incredible. Immaculate. They're really, really good. Nora tries to call Alice and Alice is driving to the J.E. Compound.

Yeah. And Alice ignores her. Well, that's just good legal driving. Sure. Hands free, maybe. So Nora calls Danny. I can't drive. I'm drunk.

So she might be an alcoholic, but she's a responsible one. She can do... Again, good legal maneuvering. She can do copping police work when she's drunk but not driving? Well, she's kind of off duty right now.

Just tackling handcuffing guys. I think that was recreational. Oh, okay, okay, cool. And then we get Ed and Danny in the car. What is it, money? What is it power? You want one of those? videos. So what did you, did you, did you interpret anything in Ed's face when he says something like

you on one of those videos? Like, do you interpret that as Ed being like, fuck I am? Or it's just what Nora already uncovered, which is that Jay Easton was like the source on, uh, the big case that Ed broke or does it matter at the end of the day? I saw it more as Danny needling, Ed, in a way that like, it was nice to see someone who is just completely impervious. to all of Ed's bullshit. Were you nervous at all that like... Oh, when he brought up Liam, for sure. That, like, Danny would capitulate.

I guess I'm just, like, constantly worried Danny's gonna disappoint me. So, like, were you worried and then just, like, felt so jubilant when Ed's faces of the, like, probably pissed so concrete of New York City? It was just, we were flying high. On a show where we haven't been able to fly high very often.

It's been pretty dark stuff happening. Yeah, we've been pretty bummed out. But to see Danny, as you alluded to, a character we've invested in and want to believe in, not be enticed whatsoever. Like no moment of hesitation that he would buy any of this. Only the second my son's name

comes out of your mouth, I'm putting you on the curb. Our guy. We love it. Come on. I did love too. We talked about Danny and Marshall's mother and kind of the clunkiness

of some of that exchange. But what it does set up is the contrast in styles here. We're like, Danny is the kind of guy who should a police officer be out here threatening people? Obviously not.

But if he does do it, it, he's going to be like, no, I want to make this very clear. I am threatening your son. Versus the Ed Georges of the world. It's like, how can I cloak myself in three levels of plausible deniability by just like, I'm going to bring up your son's name and just casually enter the fact that he's in a home into this conversation. And you can do with that what you will.

Also, like to compare what Ed's like, you couldn't raise your own son or whatever. Compare it to like Alden's really funny. Like. All did I miss you? I know. Okay. I've saved the best for last. Father-daughter bonding with J&M.

Easton. I mean, you say that and it's not a fun time. But this is unfortunately a really critical and like needily and interesting part of this episode. I get here's what, here's what I want to start this conversation. And I'm curious to integrate this now a little bit, but more even more after the finale.

What you would have a secret room for? No, absolutely not. But what if you had like a really nice secret room? Why do you need a secret room? You know, you're allowed to have your secrets, innocuous secrets. But do they need a room? Maybe. It's already your house.

Who's out here fumbling around? No, secret passageway, I'm open. A bookcase that slides back and you can, you know, get into a secret room. No, get across to a different place, sure. Secret room, people have questions. Like, I, this is tough territory for us because I want to talk about some of the interior decor decisions of that secret room. I want to talk about just the whole situation, but it is so fucked up. We can't be doing that, Joe.

We can't be glib and flip about, if you can't be critical of the drab gray of the horrible secret, I don't even want to call it a sex room. How would you call it? A creeper room at best, but it's just awful. It's barren and horrible. I'm like, I don't know that it. Would it be better if it was like cozy with like oriental rugs? There's no better.

There's no redeeming this situation. What's your favorite torture chamber decor? This is horrible and disgusting. Poor Lacey. And it's so disturbing. So, you know, we've been expecting this whole season that Hope Davis would be here to do more than just be vaguely waspy. She offers Lacey hot cider. Fucked up.

And then she goes out into her greenhouse where she's got her nice. like warm a hot cider in a mug and the pines is playing just sticking her hands in the dirt and trying to get through well you got to wash him with something after all this i guess i guess um and then she puts lacy in the car and she says you did so well you made him so happy awful and then lacy with a with a horrible mark on her wrist stops the door from closing and says who are you many people are wondering. Like, who could you possibly fucking be? Yes.

That you're Martha Stewarting your way through this fucking scenario. What an insane character. And then to watch her clean the room. Yeah. Like, at first I was like, do they have cleaning stuff in there? No. The room is so secret that it has to be Emma herself with the Dyson and the spray, like spraying down surfaces, absolutely disgusting.

Horrible. Um, and then we find out that she has been. exposing of his horrific material, but he kept a few hard drives back. And the way in which Jay Easton says, I need it is so disgusting. Caring to those hard drives with his dying grubby hands. Like a tantrum that a child would have.

I need it. Disgusting. And then him trying to sort of be like, I don't give a shit what you think about me. no one gives us shit what you think. Do you think this is, I mean, this is the first time she shoved in. This is like a breakthrough moment for her. Okay, yeah.

I mean, we haven't spent a lot of time with this character, but it seemed like a revelation for them both. What do you think broke her? Was it her birthday as the code on the save? I kind of think it might have been. And this is the thing with this character, where very little time spent with Hope Davis all season, kind of popping up here and there,

an illusion that she might be more important to this story than we realize. But I think there's an incredible economy with Emma in this episode of you do feel in some small way for this woman who has to clean up after her dad's literal mess with this teenage girl whose own birthday is the key to the safe that houses the remaining child pornography. Like all that stuff is awful

and you can still see her as irredeemable. And I want to see over the course of this next episode like how much empathy are we meant to have for Emma? This is a show that has a lot of time and interest in these people who are caught in the middle of situations and the ways in which they act out of self-preservation. I don't think Furious has shown any indication that, like, Emma's meant to be a good or justified character.

Like, this is a terrible person. I think even if she turns on her father, like, in some way, it's too late. Way too late. Way too late. And how much of that is like, what can they, what will they do to me? Yes. You're going to die. They're going to come after me.

So how much of that is self-preservation at the end of day? Similar to how having that stuff on. his laptop. You know, it wasn't about protecting girls. It was about protecting himself at the end of the day. That's what they're all doing. Disgusting. There's these clearly disgusting people who are literally having sex with underage girls. And then around them, there's a whole different orbit of disgusting people who are making this stuff possible and are willing to accept like, I'm willing to do this heinous, unforgivable thing for the sake of money, for the sake of proximity to power, for the sake of keeping my job or elevating. It's like creating that. It's like creating

that structure, I think, has been one of the strong points of this season through all of these supplementary characters. And it's like, it's kind of a neat, tidy, storytelling way to do it through like a kill list, basically, and kind of working your way up the chain of these various lawyers, but also to get here with Emma and you see kind of like the nuts and bolts way, like, the way in which she is wheeling him at the beginning of this scene. And they're just like talking about their day and, you know, taking your meds. And like, it's like such a day in the life as she opens the door to this, like, just one of the most horrific places on earth. I just think it's great storytelling, even if it is horrible to watch.

I think it's important, too, just as important as it is to have someone like Danny Kelly, who is like a good man, Savannah, who is like defending Alice. It's important to show the ways in which women can and often are complicit inside of these horrific sex trafficking. And we got this in the very beginning of the season with that young woman that, you know, why is up the hospital? And Nora is like, she was a trafficker. because every kid, every young woman she trafficked meant there was less she had to do, right? So Emma doesn't even have like whatever bare scrap of excuse that young woman had in her circumstance where it's just sort of like she's a woman born of incredible privilege and like did her dad bully and like all these like, you know, emotionally abuse her and all sort of like that.

Absolutely. Of course. But again, in this like, if we're in this post. Epstein space, can you be in Epstein and move the world without a Galen Maxwell, like without these women who are just willing to prop up these men because it suits them or willing to sacrifice, you know, if you want to get into this like real sort of classical Greek mentality, it's like these young women being thrown into the font of the pyre, you know what I mean?

In order to appease the god that is Jay Easton, it's like absolutely disgusting. But I do think it's important that there is a horrible woman on that side of things. I think it is too. And some of it too is like some of these characters, the J. Easton types. It's like there is a ghoulishness there that is almost like can't help but poke through. And I think you need characters like Emma to be walking around offering people cider like a polite face on this like just brutal, like unrepentant operation that they seem to be. Okay. In terms of the like DNA under the fingernails revelation. So this idea that like Isabel, the DNA that's under Isabel's fingernails are Emma.

Is Emma's. Yes. So I mean, I don't know if it's even interesting to speculate at this point. But like do you feel like that means that Emma killed her? Emma was at least there. Yes. When this happened. Does that mean Emma's the one who killed her and, you know, with Ed's health. or whatever, disposed of the body.

When Hal said earlier this season, I was trying to protect her. Yeah. You know, plenty of our listeners guessed that he meant Hope Davis. So, like, protect her from what, did she, the one who committed the crime? So was he covering it up to protect her because she's the actual murderer?

Right. Or just covering it up because she was even just there. And he didn't want her implicated in one way or another. I mean, all signs seem to point into the fact that she was the murderer for whatever reason to protect her. her father's interests to protect their family or their money, whatever it was. Even if she's not, again, like we alluded to earlier, like, I don't think it changes the story very much.

As weird as that is to say about a murder, but like all of these people are so horrible. Just complicit no matter what I'm. Who in the room did it is less important than who was in the room. Yeah. Okay, just so we don't end with this sort of flavor in our mouth, I would suggest a brief pallet cleanser. Okay. I love this show. I'm furious that we're covering it. It's hard to watch sometimes. Is the pallet cleanser cranking we found love until you screamed yourself for? Is that the pallet cleanser? I thought that was really good. Like when, anyway, looking at the note,

anyway, do you want to briefly talk about your anticipation for slow horses? I mean, we definitely can. September 16th, we are mere weeks away. We will be covering it week to week as we always do. Excitement is ramping up. Oh, my God. Across the board. I feel like now more than ever, people are excited for slow horses. I don't know what, like, it's a popular show. It's been a popular show. Yes. But when we were at Camden Yards, like, talking about, like, what we're looking forward to,

the way that the room erupted for slow horses, I just didn't know it was like that, you know, with the House of Our Listeners. What do you attribute that to? I mean, is it the return to form a bit of last season structurally? Is it just, like, finally cresting and hitting a critical massive audience? Like, what's happening? Is it Kyle Solner from Andor being a. this season.

Might be. My be. My guy. Can be my guy. So, Karn himself. What are you most excited for about slow horses? I mean, just getting the whole gang back together. If you have not seen the trailer, we're going to talk a little bit about the trailer.

So fast forward, get out of here, whatever you want to do. Olivia Cookback. Very important. But that's like a big swinging thing. It's going to be in the trades. Everyone's going to be talking about it. Louise is a guy looking great. Yeah.

Lose a guy. Louis a guy looking phenomenal. When is she not? When has she not put that shit on, Joe? I agree with you, Rob, and I'm going to say this in a way that underlines how I've always supported her, which I have. I think she's using that diamond money. The ice cream diamond? Yeah, the ice cream diamond.

I would love that. Her hair and her clothing is a step up. Speaking of where's the line for the cops, where's the line for the spies? Sometimes you got to smuggle out of diamond and do something for yourself. Instant Benigeries, you know what I mean? I think it's the least you could do. She's looking great. I'm just glad to have her back, period.

The idea that all of our past favorites who are still alive are going to be back in the fold because all of them are in mortal danger, that's where I want to be with slow horses. I mean, there are a lot of, you know, crossover people like Harry Lloyd, a Game of Thrones legend, is here this season. Yeah, Kyle Seller from Andor, Olivia Cook, from House of the Dragon. These are House of Our people. They're also UK people. You're always Dragon House of Our content over here into the feed, you know. dragging. You love House of Arn't content. You're watching lanterns. I am watching lanterns.

House of Our is an unbelievable podcast. I'm just saying there's a separation of church and state. Is there? I'm barely allowed to talk about lanterns. We just say freeze frame Mahoney all the time on House of Ar. It's honestly fair. You're representative. I appreciate it. Anything else you want to say about the horses? I'm just thrilled to be back. Thrill be back in Slough House for us to be back on our bullshit, for Gary Oldman to return to our lives on a week-by-week basis.

I think something we had worried about was because there's a different writer this season, like if the writing would feel is like sharp and and snarky. So tune in to find out. I would say good omens from the trailer. Yes. I enjoyed it. I agree. And I do think knowing a bit about like the book this season is based on, I think the,

I'm just trying to say I'm as much as I can without giving anything away. I think the form of this season is going to feel different in an exciting way. Wow. That was masterful. Was it? That was you going on a late-night talk show and trying to talk around the plot of the movie you're in. I am not playing Jim Gray.

Don't worry about it. Absolutely not. X-Men casting news, want to wait in? I got nothing for you. Okay. That has been an episode of the PrestiHTV podcast. We'll be back with the finale for Furious. And then pretty soon thereafter, slow horses, series six.

And thank you to Devereignaldo. Of course. Who is dialing in from the East Coast for this podcast. Thank you to Kai Grady in absentia. Thank you of Jacob Cornett, who flipped this set in no time at all. Remarkable. Between House of Our and Prestige.

And the time it took me to get to the other side of the couch, the set was flipped. Thank you, Rob Mahoney. Thank you, Joe. And we'll see you soon. Bye.